


Fissure

by Elisheva_Nadir



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015), The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Triggers, Violence, Violence against women
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 01:40:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5028745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisheva_Nadir/pseuds/Elisheva_Nadir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gaby has been studying Solo and Illya for some time now. She wants to learn from them as well as learn about them. What she really wants to know though are their tipping points... It is important to her to know when things have finally gone too far.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Solo

Gaby has been studying Solo and Illya for some time now. She wants to learn from them as well as learn about them. What she really wants to know though are their tipping points. In English she has learned the word subterfuge. It is a good word. There are several words in German that she could use for almost the same meaning. _Täuschungsmanöver_. _Täuschung_. _Ausflucht_. They are close but after Solo explains the word to her, both in English and German, she thinks that the English have won this particular word game and there really is no better way to say it. She is learning from them, about them, the _boys_ , to protect them from this. From subterfuge. It is important to her to know when things have finally gone too far.

She has seen Illya stab a man and not even flinch, seen the cold calm of vindication sweep over his face as he twists the blade and retracts it. She remembers the last moments of Alexander Vinciguerra's life explicitly because of this. He had not hesitated a moment.

For all Solo blusters on about being a gentlemen and seemingly reluctant to kill unless absolutely necessary, he also does not hesitant when the moment befalls him. Gaby remembers the mission in Chile and how Solo had stood so calmly, reloading his gun amidst a hail of bullets before aiming carefully and picking off their assailants. The setting sun had cast a dark shadow over Solo's face but his eyes had seemed to be lit with an inner, icy fire.

Neither Solo nor Illya seem shaken by collapsing buildings, bombs, bullets, or death by poisoning. They are unwavering in the face of torture and immeasurable pain. Gaby had thought the incident with the sharks would have been enough to shake them up, she had certainly been shaken to her core, but Solo's hand was as steady as ever after the mission as he poured himself a drink and Illya was sat before his ever present chessboard, deep in thought.

It happens in Vancouver. Illya is noticeably tense to be so close to America, although his opinion of Canada is not much better. Solo is tense too but Gaby is unsure of whether it is because of the mission or because it seems that the CIA is that much closer.

Their target is a smuggler that is angling to work for much, much larger fish, and is causing a great deal of grief. Said smuggler has deemed it necessary to abscond with a powerful Brazilian family, confident in his ability to gain the money he wants and a toe-hold in South America for his "business."

The mission goes tits up about the time the smuggler realizes he's cornered and has maybe half an escape. He kills Mr. Oliveira, Mrs. Oliveira, and two of the three children, using the third as a shield. The killings are completely unexpected and make Gaby feel shaky, so much so that she feels sick to her stomach. Solo's hand is as steady as ever when he levels his gun on the smuggler and shoots him clean through the forehead. The youngest child, Manoel, is quiet and alive and perhaps at the tender age of 4 is already contemplative of the fact that he has just lost his family.

Manoel clings to Solo, eyes large and round as he stares unseeing at the world around him. Gaby had never thought of Solo has a paternal figure, or even a figure comfortable with children but Solo is soothing and speaks to Manoel in soft Portuguese. He wraps Manoel in his suit coat and keeps the child well away from the bodies as Gaby and Illya arrange the bodies so that they can be picked up by the extraction team.

It's an hour later when the extraction team have arrived that Solo quietly hands the very limp body of Manoel over to a medic who gives Solo a strange look before taking the child away. Poison. The smuggler had given the whole family poison, never intending for them to make it past the morning but with the arrival of Solo, Gaby, and Illya, his time table had moved up and he'd needed to lose the extra baggage.

Solo is quiet on the way back to the safe house. He says very little _in_ the safe house and he takes the entire bottle of cheap whiskey that is stashed under the sink and takes five long pulls from it before he comes up for air. Solo closes himself off in what would be the spare bedroom — it lacks any furniture beyond a torn armchair — on the ground floor of the safe house and drinks half the bottle before he cracks.

There is a scream that sounds as if it has come up from the ground itself to work through Solo's body before leaving his mouth. The crash of a bottle. The shattering of a window. The armchair is destroyed and most of the plastering on the south wall is smashed in. Gaby tucks herself on the other side of the defunct refrigerator, as far away from the hurricane of violence as she can get, and presses the side of her face against the wall until the silence in the other room stretches for past an hour.

Illya had left as soon as the sound of the whiskey bottle broke, his hands shaking, and unable to quite meet Gaby's gaze.

Gaby crawls from beside the refrigerator and makes her way to Solo. He is sprawled out beside the door, his shirt half unbuttoned and torn, knuckles bleeding, and his face is wet. Gaby will never say out loud Solo is crying, that this is the first and only time, she has ever seen him cry. His eyes are red and his lips won't quite stay closed as he takes deep, rattling breaths.

Gaby picks her way to sit beside Solo and wraps her arms around him, not knowing any other way to offer comfort and tries to will her strength into Solo as he wraps his arms around her smaller frame and buries his face into her neck. Gaby runs her fingers through Solo's hair over and over, desperate to soothe him.

In the morning Solo is freshly showered, patched up, and chipper. He drags the three of them to a restaurant for breakfast, flirts with the waitress, and slips away to see an antique dealer. Illya is annoyed, ready to be whisked off to London or Barcelona, somewhere that is not Vancouver. Gaby wants to scream and shake Solo until his teeth rattle so hard they rattle out of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Täuschungsmanöver - It has morning of a meaning to 'feint' or confuse in the sense of 'bamboozlement'. 'Ploy' would be the closest you could probably get to subterfuge. 
> 
> Täuschung - closer to the English 'trickery' or 'illusion'. 'Deception' is also another approximate.
> 
> Ausflucht - probably the closest you can get to the same meaning as subterfuge.


	2. Illya

Gaby witnesses Illya's hidden savagery in Prague. She does not know if it is because they are close to Russia, practically in the pocket of the KGB once more, or if it is the situation itself. The mission was simple enough, break up a drug ring, and should have been given to another U.N.C.L.E. team that needed to get their toes wet but Solo had insisted they be the ones sent over. Gaby has yet to question Solo on why he was so adamant but she has locked the question away for later, when they are far away from Prague and she can slowly pull the story from him.

It is Illya who demands to check the subterranean levels of the decrepit warehouse, unconvinced that they have killed Bazil Marek even though Solo is certain that he shot, "the son of a bitch." But Solo was wrong.

They find Marek in a safe room, obviously never expecting to be caught as he doesn't even have his gun drawn and four of his six living henchmen are dispatched within moments. It leaves Marek unarmed and the two remaining men have forfeited their weapons in favor of living. Gaby thinks this is the smartest move they have made all night. Perhaps the smartest move they've made since joining Marek.

The whimper from behind a crate finally brings everyone's attention to a pair of just visible dirty feet. Illya's snarl in Russian makes Gaby flinch as he orders the unknown individual to come out in the open. The minute that it takes for the figure of a woman to drag herself to her feet is longer than it should be. It sets Gaby's teeth to grinding, knowing that the longer they delay the greater the chance that Marek will be able to make a move.

The woman is wearing a filthy dress that is two sizes too large. Or perhaps it used to fit her but now she is thin, the sort of thinness acquired from malnourishment and drugs. Her blue eyes are nearly sunken into her head and she is shaking, from fear, from the cold, from a hunger that is also a poison.

Gaby watches the flash of anger across Marek's face followed by contempt and even a form of hunger that is far different from the woman's. It takes Gaby less than a second for everything to click into place but by then Illya is already speaking, his tone gentled but still firm. Gaby keeps her gun trained on one of the henchmen, Solo on the other, and Illya's gun ready on Marek.

Illya's conversation is brief with the woman, her answers curt but seemingly to the point. Enough so that Illya shifts his gun enough to shoot either men beside Marek, felling them in two quick shots and then surging toward Marek, swinging his fist so that he punches Marek in the face, the man landing in a heavy lump on the ground and moaning as he cradles his broken jaw. Gaby wonders if Illya has hurt himself at all from the mighty swing or if he was completely unscathed.

Illya stands tall over Marek's crumpled form and holds his hand out for the woman. She hesitates a moment and then moves, her steps light but jagged as if she is afraid the floor will fall from beneath her feet. Illya asks her another question, this time quieter and even gentler and the woman raises a shaking hand to point at a locker. Illya nods sharply and presses his gun into the woman's hand, his gaze holding hers in a silent moment of understanding before striding toward the locker.

The shaking stops for a moment, as if the woman has been able to breathe in a calming warmth. Her gaze is sharp, determined, and she holds the gun two handed, using a foot to kick Marek onto his back before unloading the remaining bullets into him. The first three reports make Gaby jerk in surprise but it is the empty clicking of the gun that make her feel rage that there had not been more bullets in the gun.

Illya literally rips the door of the locker open, reminding Gaby of that night in Berlin, and her rage is spiked with a level of fear as a fourth man is dragged out into the open. The man is shouting, begging Illya, begging the woman, trying to get away. Gaby wishes that she spoke better Russian or even Czech for that matter but there are two words that she knows, that need no translation, "Father," and "Daughter." Another tumbler clicks into place for Gaby and she feels white hot shock run through her body as she realizes that it is not Marek they have killed. It was not Marek outside the warehouse. It was not the man that the woman rained bullets on. The real Marek is before Illya and is crying, his confession gushing forth as Illya holds him down on his knees by his hair, roaring at him to divulge everything.

Illya's shouting grows louder and louder, his face steadily redder as Marek begs. Gaby imagines that the final words Marek hears are from Illya, "You do not beg me! You beg her!" right before Illya hauls Marek up onto his feet and smashes his head into the corner of a metal crate. Gaby gasps, the violence somehow worse than what has already taken place. She sees that the woman is standing firm, hands balled at her sides as Illya yanks Marek's head back and delivers another blow.

Solo rushes toward Gaby and pulls her tight to his chest, his free hand covering her eyes as Illya yells and rains blow after blow down on Marek. Gaby knows that the sounds of cracking bones and flesh hitting unyielding metal seems more horrifying than witnessing the violence but what Solo is doing is shielding her from Illya. She presses tight against Solo, feeling as if she wants to press into him until they merge into one.

The yelling and punching finally stops and they're only left with Illya's heaving breaths as he fights to calm down. Solo moves his hand away from Gaby's eyes, her fingers curled tight around his hand seemingly of their own volition. Solo angles them away from the red mess that is Marek but it is not quick enough for Gaby to avoid the sight of one of Marek's arms that hangs a little too loosely in the confines of his shirt, as if it has been pulled from its socket and now only hangs by a fleshy thread. Gaby immediately pushes the image away, refusing to vomit even as her stomach rolls. Refusing to process what she has just seen.

Solo's voice is soft and firm, much like Illya earlier, and he seems to be coaching Illya in Russian. Gaby stares at Illya and tells herself that it is not blood that covers his face, that the thicker, darker globs on his coat is not something much worse. She tells herself that when Illya looks at her, right _through_ her, that it is not because he has just destroyed a man and would destroy a dozen more in the same way and not even think twice. She tells herself that she is not afraid of Illya as he steadily walks toward them, his movements unnaturally composed, a leviathan of unimaginable brutality.

They make it as far as the outside of the warehouse when Solo finally lets go of Gaby's hand and tells her to flee with Marek's daughter, that he will find her later. Gaby refuses to believe that it is cowardice that makes her walk a little quicker, makes her trust Solo so that she doesn't question his call to leave or that it takes four days for Solo and Illya to resurface.

It is a month after the Prague incident, they are in Killarney, in a lodge not too far from Ross Castle, when Solo settles himself down beside Gaby on the couch. They are on mandated R&R and Gaby thinks that Killarney in September is charming. Solo is practicing his Irish accent, claiming that he is brushing up specifically on his Cork accent but the accent completely drops the moment he sits beside Gaby.

Solo is drunk, his eyes glassy and red, and he leans heavily next to her. Solo starts talking about nothing, the weather, his lunch, the whiskey he's had, and then he mentions Prague. He tells Gaby that after she had left he waited for Illya to surface, a crowbar in hand, ready for him. Solo says that he knocked Illya unconscious, knowing that Illya would have killed him right then and there because he was still blind with rage. He tied Illya up and dragged him to an old safe house, waiting for him to wake up.

When Illya did wake up he broke through the rope that held his hands behind his back and rushed Solo, bearing down on him, limbs thrashing until he was exhausted. Solo says they fought for nearly an hour and begs Gaby to promise that she will never repeat what she is about to hear. Solo holds both of her hands in his and he can't quite keep his watery gaze steady enough to hold Gaby's so he stares at their joined hands.

Solo tells Gaby that Illya began to cry, that he screamed until his throat was raw, and he pleaded with Solo. Pleaded to make the sounds of drums go away and for Solo to hit him.

"He begged me to hit him until he could remember what it felt like to be human again," Solo whispers.

It is a month after Killarney and they are in Havana, the only place that U.N.C.L.E. had agreed on where Sanders could meet up with Solo. The entire morning that Solo is sequestered away with Sanders has Gaby on edge and she finds that she is asking Illya about that night in Prague. How did he know about Marek? How had he known about the daughter? She doesn't ask the obvious question about Illya himself, knowing that, that will be a question never answered.

"You can always smell a rat," Illya says, his voice serious and gaze distant, "No matter how deep they burrow."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess we all know who the third chapter will be.
> 
> Also... hand to god I really am working on The Mad Scientist.


	3. Gaby

Gaby sighs, her gaze lingering on the clock that she has recently bought. It is mint colored with gold accents. She knows that Illya and Solo would hate it, calling it ugly, but she likes the way it looks like a building, like a sky scraper. It looks out of place sitting by itself on the kitchen island but Gaby has been careful to buy pieces for her apartment that she likes. A part of her is always fighting the fear that everything will be taken from her again.

The clock tick, tick, ticks away. 2:11. Gaby leans heavily against the counter space by the stove and thinks that exactly a week ago, down to the very minute, she had shot a man as he stood no less than 10 feet from her. The thought makes Gaby's heart clench and she feels… she feels.

The clock continues to tick and Gaby is left to think about how the man had asked her not to shoot but she hadn't given the mission parameters a second thought. Gaby had squeezed the trigger anyway.

There is a word that Gaby has avoided thinking. She tells herself that she is not this thing. That everything she does is justified. U.N.C.L.E. would not make her a _killer_. She isnot this thing. She is _not_.

The edges of the room blur for a moment and Gaby blinks rapidly, deep breaths through her nose the only noise in the room besides the clock. The apartment is too quiet. It is too empty. The walls, Gaby swears, are liable to collapse in on themselves and crush her underneath. It is too much. Gaby has to get out. She must.

 

Gaby reaches Solo's apartment and has managed to crush four cigarettes in all of her attempts to light at least _one_. Her hands shake too much to keep the lighter steady and the harder she tries to stay still the worse the tremors are. She is lucky she has stashed her bottle of vodka in her purse or it might have shattered before she had the first sip. She doubts the store clerk would sell her another bottle in such a short amount of time. Not at this time of night.

It is Illya that answers the door; any traces of sleep burned from his face as he realizes who has come. Gaby is swept into the apartment and to the small sitting room, Illya turning on a handful of lamps as they go.

Gaby is still trying to light her cigarette, number five, but now the flint on the lighter won't catch. Illya is there, his sure hands taking the cigarette and lighter away, lighting it with ease. He takes a thoughtful drag on the cigarette, his hands dwarfing the thin stick, as he watches Gaby fuss with her purse so she can produce her bottle of vodka.

Gaby is taking a long pull of vodka as she watches Illya watch her. He looks between her and the cigarette before smothering it in the crystal ashtray that sits between the two of them. Gaby thinks to herself that Illya looks too big for the low-backed club chair that he occupies while the twin that she sits in feels as if it will swallow her whole.

Gaby surges to her feet, still clutching her bottle, still shaking. Illya sits there. Just sits. If it was Solo he would have one ankle cocked jauntily across his knee, a practiced smirk on his lips as he waits for Gaby to talk. He would wiggle his foot, his slipper threatening to fall off but never quite happening. His hair would be ruffled and he would fold his hands over his stomach as he seemed unaffected about being woken up at nearly 2:30 in the morning. Solo would even have found the sensibility to wrap himself in a robe for decencies sake. It is not Solo sitting before it.

It is Illya. He is barefoot, the soft cotton of his sleep pants pulled tight at the bend of his knees as he sits perfectly still, his gaze the only thing about him that moves. Gaby thinks, rather madly, that she wants to blind Illya in that moment. Then he would move. Then he would flail.

Gaby feels as if her skin is too tight, that it is too hard to breathe, and she wants… she wants.

"Gaby," Illya's voice is soft and too loud all at once. Gaby wants to smash her bottle against the wall and scream. Maybe then she could breathe.

Illya says her name again, his hand moving slowly out to her and Gaby jerks back. She knows what those hands can do. They are teaching her to do the same. Gaby thinks that she could never let those hands touch her again. They have killed.

Gaby drops her bottle and tears away from Illya, searching for Solo's room. He is asleep as any sensible person should be but he starts awake with the clarity of someone too use to going from deep sleep to fully awake in the blink of an eye. The gun he has drawn is already being placed aside as he calls, "Gaby?" It asks why is she here? What is going on? Is she hurt? Has something happened?

Gaby ignores all these questions and crawls atop the bed, the first sob she lets out catching her by surprise. Solo opens his arms to her and Gaby folds herself into a small ball as she clings to him and begins to cry. His arms are like vices, holding her in place, and she feels less and less like she is spiraling out of control.

"This is right," Gaby says between sobs. "We do right. We are good." Illya hovers by the doorway, blocking whatever light had managed to filter in from the hallway. "We are not them. We're _not_." Solo says nothing, simply holds her and lets Gaby cry and tell him they are not the Soviets. They have purpose. They seek to make the world better, safer. Gaby tells herself over and over she has made the right choice. She chose right.

Gaby only jerks once when Illya places his hand over her ankle but he presses against her ankle until she would have to kick him in order to get free. He is there to anchor her down.

"I killed that man," Gaby whispers and sighs in relief as Illya moves to stretch out beside her. She is trapped between the two and it is warmth, it is steadiness. She can feel their heartbeats against her body and she feels drunk. Her limbs are too heavy. Her eyes won't stay open.

Gaby thinks that this is the closest that Solo and Illya have ever been when not on a mission and wants to cry anew. They are here for her. Her mountain and her thief.

 

Morning is a strange affair. Solo has slipped off to busy himself in the kitchen and Gaby finds she has wound herself tightly against Illya during the night. He is on his back, an arm wrapped around Gaby and a foot hanging off the edge of the bed as if the covers had become too hot. Gaby knows that it is not fever that courses through Illya and that he is always this warm.

Illya's lips are soft beneath her own and they move sluggishly as he comes awake. He does not start. He does not throw Gaby away. Illya groans beneath her and rolls them lazily over so that he is spread above her, his hips snug between her thighs. Gaby's dress is bunched around her waist and she runs her nails through Illya's hair as he kisses her and grinds his cock against her.

When Illya pulls back to look at her it is awe that Gaby sees. He looks hopeful. He looks at Gaby as if asking if this is a dream. Gaby wants this dream to never end.

It is nothing to push Illya onto his back, to pull her underwear off, and tug his sleep pants down enough so that she can straddle him and sink down onto the thick erection curving up from his body. They move languidly until Gaby finally comes, her head tipped back and her whole body shivering. She can feel the beat of her heart in her gums, in the tips of her fingers and toes. All of her throbs with the steady thump of her heart and she wants this to never end.

Solo is there at the door to the bedroom, his polite cough a reminder that he had been witness to these last few privates moments. Gaby looks over her shoulder, a hand stretched out to him. His brow quirks, thoughtful, he is not quite shocked at the invitation but surprised. Solo's expression is one that says he had not been expecting to be invited. He is there to grasp her hand though, to give her a kiss while she is still astride Illya, his slowly softening cock still deep inside her. This is new. It is exciting. But they are here for her. Solo and Illya. They are here to keep her from falling apart.


	4. Waverly (bonus chapter)

Waverly is a young man still, just turned 33, his whole life ahead of him after quite the distinguished career and it doesn't seem like it is ready to end. MI5 has offered him a position in Hong Kong. The War is over, his family have survived—thank you heavens above—and now all his mother can do is not quite so subtly hint at the fact that her Alexander will not be young forever. There is a stifling thrill about the notion of settling down and starting a family.

He accepts the job in Hong Kong, putting his gift of language to good use. As the director of the Hong Kong branch of MI5 it is everything he expected and yet nothing like what he expected. It is not the War, the danger is not what he is use to but there are problems of their own that present themselves. The same unflappable determination he had during his military services is still firmly in place, the silly nickname Unwavering Waverly, still just as true.

There are things to lose oneself in though, it is Hong Kong after all. The culture is deep and rich, the people somehow more alive than those back home. It is a touch of the familiar and foreign all at once. England is still all around him and yet she is far, far away.

Maybe it is because dear England is so far, far away that perhaps he drinks slightly more than a chap should and that opium business… rather dangerous stuff if one isn't careful. And Waverly is anything if not careful.

He is so careful that one foggy morning in 1958 he finds himself in the alley outside of his apartment. The burn of alcohol and opium has long tapered off and he is left cotton-mouthed and sore. There is not a piece of him that does not hurt but the part of him that hurts the most is the clench of his lungs as he longs for the next inhalation of refined poppy. This should be troubling. It should be _alarming_. There are many _shoulds_ concerning Waverly's situation but he dusts himself off and heads off to clean himself up. It perhaps wasn't the most dignified way to celebrate his twelfth year in Hong Kong but Waverly supposes that there are a great many other indignities that he could have befallen.

It happens two weeks into the New Year, 1959. Everything is still fresh and exciting and just a bit maudlin that another year has gone by. Waverly finds that he is still quietly tsk'ing every time he uses the correction tape to blot out 1958.

At the beastly hour of 3 o'clock in the morning Waverly is dragged from his bed, the phone having rung for quite some time before he could part his way through the fog of liquor and answer with a curt, "Someone had better be dying, Henderson."

But no one was dying. They were already dead. Waverly is brought to the hospital but he doesn't follow the nurse to a room full of softly beeping electronics. He follows the solemn faced woman down the hallway and through a set of double doors marked in two languages, proclaiming the same thing, "Hospital Personnel Only Beyond These Doors." It is a short flight of stairs, another hallway, another set of doors… Waverly thinks to himself that the earth is threatening to swallow him whole as he travels ever downward.

It is in the morgue where Waverly finds himself, the smell of death and bone chilling cold so much different than that one seemingly endless winter years ago. Waverly use to tell himself that he would never forget what it meant to be that cold, that he would never forget the smell of death as it crystallized in the snow. But it is here, in the morgue, where Waverly will look back many years from now and say, "This, this is what it means to be cold. This is the smell of death."

His name is Agent Henry James Matthews. Formerly Heinrich Jakob Messer. Agent Matthews had been a boy during the War, having turned 12 by the time the Allies declared victory. Waverly slowly remembers Agent Matthews file, knows that he still has a couple of months before his 26th birthday. Waverly remembers the first day he had looked at Agent Matthews application photo and thought to himself that they had hired a child.

Unmoving and frightfully pale Agent Matthews still looks like a child, the white cloth folded neatly down to his armpits as if someone has tenderly tucked him in. His blond hair, just a fraction too long for office regulations, has been parted on the wrong side and combed neatly over. Waverly asks the attendants to please leave, yes it is Agent Matthews, yes he is sure, yes he is the boy's employer, yes he will contact the next of kin. Waverly will do all these things but for now he just needs to be alone. Alone so he can take shaking fingers and comb Agent Matthews hair in the other direction, smoothing it out with the flat of his palm.

Waverly notes the small dimple in Agent Matthews chin, as if he had pressed his index finger there too long in thought. Like this it is hard to remember that there seems to always be a gleam of a sly fox about him. That Agent Matthews was in turns quick to laugh and quick to be so very serious. As if the laughter was a disguise.

Waverly had been keen on guiding Matthews into becoming a good agent, knowing that the irreverence of his youth would burn away to refined maturity. That he just needed to shake off the last dredges of the horror of his youth and live a little too loudly and fully before settling. Waverly never begrudged Agent Matthews for his excesses but perhaps he should have kept a closer eye on him.

Waverly does not need to check the crease of Agent Matthews arms to know there are fine pin prick bruises, some old, some new. He does not have to bend close and smell the scent of alcohol cleverly disguised under industrial soap to know what has killed Agent Matthews because they are the same things that are slowly killing Waverly.

A still shaking hand wipes the first tear trail away, the swipe of a knuckle under his eye, then the back of his hand. A handkerchief is produced and the slight dabbing becomes a press as Waverly tries to force the tears back. His lips open and close repeatedly, working silently around words he isn't sure how to pronounce. It is in the confines of this room that Waverly feels his heart break in two as he sees before him a boy that should have lived and an aging man that has no right to squander his remaining years.

It is in this room that Waverly can cry and clench Agent Matthews hand in his own. This room where Waverly can mourn for the boy and for his own troubles.

It is nearly three years before Waverly will retire as the director, bidding Hong Kong farewell for many years. Four years before Waverly will approach a one Ms. Gabrielle Teller with an idea that he has had formulating for longer than he would like to think. Four years before Gaby could even look at Waverly and wonder just how all of him worked, as if she were looking under the bonnet of a car.

In that moment, with Agent Matthews hand in his own and a handkerchief pressed to his eyes, Waverly will never know what Gaby would have done to help him. Will never know if she would stand quietly by his side, respectful of the silence he was trying so hard to keep. Perhaps she would have taken his hand from his face and wrapped her fingers around his. Perhaps she would wrap her arms around his middle and press her head to his chest and murmur quietly to him. Perhaps she would have laid a consoling hand on his shoulder and then simply walked outside the room to leave him with his grief. Waverly will never know.

So it is with a shuddering breath that Waverly pulls himself together, hastily stashing his handkerchief in his pocket, and taking several deep inhalations through his nose. The antiseptic smell of the morgue burns through his lungs and he coughs, disguising the red of his eyes as he waves off the nurse who has come back into the room. Yes he is quite alright. No he doesn't need help. Yes he'll be on his way, paperwork to be done of course, a family to be notified of such tragic news. Yes, quite right, he was a rather good chap, such horrid luck that he feel through the cracks.

Waverly promises himself that he won't ever let another agent go the way of Matthews.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT!? A bonus chapter? Yeah, I know, I couldn't quite help myself :D

**Author's Note:**

> I am working on my other piece, The Mad Scientist, but damn it I just cannot get my shit together apparently.


End file.
